Tag Archives: wonderful venues

Come and say hello….

Stem Flowers will be exhibiting at The UK Wedding Show at the ExCel Centre, London on 4 and 5 February.  Come and say hello to us at Stand 116 where we’re working with Beauberry House (lovely venue), Shot by the Sheriff (photography) and SLRP (PA, lighting and event production).  Our stand is called South Side, just to give a hint about where we’re all based!  South London florists on a South London stand!  I’ve got some complimentary tickets so make contact with me as soon as you can if you’d like one…..There won’t be many other florists there so I hope you’ll enjoy all the gorgeous seasonal flowers and foliage we’ll be using.

loving this dress thing

Wow!  Professional photos of my flowers are on the wonderful Love My Dress blog after a really fun photo-shoot at Beauberry House.  Wedding organiser Andri Benson brought together a group of fabulous South London women who are all in the wedding trade and we rocked the whole day.  Pretty vintage flowers, romantic dresses, amazing cakes.   And now one very proud stemgirl.

And here are some of the photos I took.  Just so you can see the difference between my efforts and what a professional can do!

perfect and pink (and white too)

 

I don’t think I have to say anything, really.  How absolutely perfect are these nerines?  They’re in season now and are completely magical!  The bright pink ones above were used for all the bridesmaids (and buttonholes too) and the fantastic combination of white cymbidium orchids and nerines below was for Emma’s gorgeous bridal bouquet. 

cool and cosmopolitan

Hooray!  Have a look at Stem’s gorgeous flowers featured in the October/November issue of Cosmopolitan Bride.

Stem provided the flowers for Jude and Dave’s fabulous wedding at The Swan at the Globe in London (p.46-48).  More photos of their day will follow as soon as this very proud stemgirl gets back into the world of the organised blogger!

As I think I’ve said before, features in magazines or on other blogs and websites are the kind of publicity we just can’t buy.   I know I’m not an expert at the whole publicity thing but I am increasingly underwhelmed by the effectiveness of paid-for advertising.  That is, I don’t think it’s worth the cash.  I suspect our clients are most interested in recommendations and information about Stem from people who know what they’re talking about (i.e. other brides and grooms) rather than glossy ads that tell you nothing real about us.  That’s not a hint about recommending us, by the way.  Really not….

a riot of colour

Dendrobiums, delphiniums, roses and mint

“Apart from the vows, the flowers are the most important part of my day” said my bride when I first met her.  No pressure, then!  This wedding was a real challenge for me because I knew how vital it was to get things right.  Not because Emily had outrageous demands but because getting the colours and textures spot-on were fundamental to making a massive, creative impact.  Oh, and the flowers needed to be individual, distinctive and un-weddingy….

Bridesmaid's bouquet of Grand Prix and Milano roses with mint and bupleurum

Flower girl's bucket of dendrobium orchids, Grand Prix roses and bupleurum

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say that I absolutely adore the combination of flowers and foliage we decided upon.  Magenta dendrobium orchids, intensly blue ‘Volkerfrieden’ delphiniums, deep cerise ‘Milano’ and garnet red ‘Grand Prix’ roses literally popped out of lush green flowering mint and zinging green bupleurum.  And the little details of red and pink satin ribbons on the bouquets, or the red pail for the flower girl, just added to the slightly quirky impact of the flowers.  Completely gorgeous!

Colour-filled tableAn abundance of flowers for tablesAbundant table vases

Beauberry House is a very beautiful venue and a fabulous backdrop for gorgeous flowers so the absolute abundance we had really did the job of bringing colour and excitement to every room.  A wonderfully riotous and (not so) random selection of vessels and flowers adorned every availabe windowsill, table, mantelpiece and loo with everything coming together in an enormous expolsion of foliage and blooms in a contemporary Entrance Hall pedestal.  The two olive trees at the main doors didn’t get away with staying as they were – red and pink ribbons were candy-striped down the trunks and complementary kalanchoe plants were crammed around the bottom of each.  A rather exhausting day for stem flowers, I have to say, but there’s nothing so good as knowing that a venue looks fantastic and that the bride and groom love what you’ve done!

Olive tree with candy stripe ribbons with red and pink kalanchoes